Haunted by the patients he failed to save, a monumentally burned-out Manhattan ambulance paramedic fights to maintain his sanity over three increasingly turbulent nights.
Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, an EMS technician driving the mean streets of New York, is a troubled soul. What used to be a calling that fits him like a glove, the job of racing into desperate situations and coming to the aid of the near-dead or injured, has taken its toll over the years. Slowly, it becomes clear that Frank is no longer trying to rescue others as much as he is himself.
The film’s narrative—such as it is—chronicles Frank’s exploits with three co-pilots over an equivalent number of nights. The first is with Larry (John Goodman), a tech who appears to treat food as a coping mechanism for the inherent stress of the job. As events progress, Larry emerges as the most even-keeled of Frank’s partners.
On their first stop, Frank and Larry encounter an old man named Mr. Burke (Cullen O. Johnson) who has coded. His daughter Mary (Patricia Arquette) wails and whines about their historically dysfunctional relationship, alternatively wishing him dead earlier in the morning and then bemoaning the prospect of his passing in the evening.
Frank attempts to shock Burke back to life with a defibrillator several times without success. As the paramedics start to log the time of death, Frank unexpectedly detects a pulse. Off they go to Our Lady of Mercy, nicknamed Lady of Misery, for additional treatment. Guarding the entrance to the emergency room is Griss, hilariously portrayed by Afemo Omilami, sporting aviator sunglasses, imploring the nut cases around him not to make him take them off. As Frank and Larry go inside with Burke unconscious on a stretcher, Dr. Hazmat (Nestor Serrano) scolds the medics that the hospital is over capacity already. Nonetheless, the staff carves out a place for Burke in a corner, where he gets the paddles to the chest every few minutes to maintain a pulse.
As the movie progresses, Frank regularly sees Rose’s (Cynthia Roman) face on other people’s faces. Of all the patients Frank couldn’t save – and there are many – Rose disturbs him the most. Whether because of a failed intubation or just bad luck, Frank can’t shake Rose from his tortured psyche.
Frank’s lost patients haunt him so much that he begs his boss, Captain Barney (Arthur Nascarella), to fire him. No dice. The shifts are already stretched to the limit, and Barney can’t spare a single man. Since Larry called in sick, Frank is teamed with Marcus (Ving Rhames), a Bible-quoting Evangelical eager to trade on the reputation of Jesus for his own work on the job. When called to administer aid to an overdosed junkie, he prepares the onlookers for a miracle just before he dispenses the Narcan that he knows will revive the patient. Though clearly borderline out-of-control – even when he flips the ambulance – Marcus is nothing compared to Frank’s next encounter.
Night three teams Frank with Tom Wolls (Tom Sizemore), a hyperactive, crazed tech who thrives on chaos – the more, the better. Frank, despite his fragile state, periodically joins the insanity, exemplified by a scene inside the front of the ambulance that looks like an acid trip, with both men laughing dementedly. At several points, Tom tries to chase down an emergency room regular named Noel (Marc Anthony), intending to beat him to death, presumably in order to make the world a marginally better place. Sizemore’s character personifies the madness of the bizarre storyline that meanders its way to a resolution of sorts, which comes none too soon.
Directed by Martin Scorsese and adapted for the screen by Paul Schrader based on the novel by Joe Connelly, “Bringing Out the Dead” hardly seems to know where it’s going but is in a huge hurry to get there. Though visually enticing, the production thrashes along until finally offering some semblance of peace for Frank by the time the closing credits roll at last.
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